Rick Hill is the Valero Alamo Bowl’s VP of Marketing and Communications. Prior to the bowl, Rick spent 6 years working for the Spurs, one season with Missions Baseball and two fruitless months trying to sell season tickets for the S.A. Riders.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

This Week’s Highlights: USC at OSU & ND vs. Michigan

Even though I’m 20+ years removed from high school, I vividly recall two rejections that feel like they just recently happened.

First, Laura Schildroth turned down my invite to prom saying she was “morally against everything prom stood for” and then accepting Mike Dupske’s offer a week later. I loaded up on Farotto’s toasted ravioli, Ted Drewes’ Frozen Custard and added to my depressed state by spending prom night at a third rate baseball card show in a rundown airport hotel.

The second rejection was equally as tough on me as I thought I was a lock to earn a spot on my high school paper. It was a horrible feeling to walk up to the wall where the new staff was posted with a smile while joking with friends only to turn and sulk away when my name was nowhere to found.

Luckily for my waist line, I eschewed comfort food this time and went straight into “I’ll show them attitude” and signed up for the newspaper adviser’s journalism class. During the semester I wrote several epic pieces including coverage of a local table tennis tournament (I know now never, ever call it ping pong) and a commentary on the “cheers not jeers” policy our principal instituted at men’s basketball games.

My work in the journalism class and the school paper the next year when I was selected as a sports writer was not very noteworthy. Nor were a lot of the skills I learned like how to layout a paper onto wax and how many picas wide a column should be. I do, however; catch myself saying “cheers not jeers” when I hear someone yell anything disrespectful at a sporting event.

I also remember and emulate our adviser who would jump around the classroom on deadline days smacking his ruler on the desks screaming “Brevity. Brevity.” and “Feature the Future.” Thus it’s ironic I still fail miserably at both as today it’s taken me seven paragraphs to get to the point of today’s post, a discussion of this weekend’s big college football games.

First, let’s start with the showdown between #3 USC and #8 Ohio State at 7 p.m. on Saturday on ESPN. The College GameDay crew will be in Columbus to watch the Buckeyes try to avenge last year’s 35-3 loss to the Trojans in Los Angeles.

I wouldn’t put too much stock in each team’s week one games as USC rolled past San Jose State by 50+ while Ohio State struggled against a Navy team that always competes for 60 minutes and has an offense that provides a unique challenge.

If USC true freshman quarterback Matt Barkley goes into the Horseshoe and takes over the game, I’m going to go the Beano Cook route and predict he’ll win three Heisman trophies. On the other sideline, Terrelle Pryor is hoping for improved offensive line play to help his team move the ball and prove they can succeed with him as a pocket passer.

Speaking of offensive lineman, it’ll be battle of some veteran hogs when #18 Notre Dame plays at Michigan in a matchup between two of the sport’s top programs at 2:30 p.m. on ABC. In his Wall Street Journal story last April, Darren Everson called offensive-line experience “one of the telltale predictors of success in college football.” He pointed out that eight of the top 10 teams in the 2008 final AP poll began the year with 65 or more combined career starts by their offensive linemen.” Preseason favorites with fewer than 40 combined starts struggled while upstart teams Utah and Ole Miss posted 80+ starts and exceeded expectations last year.

The article credits Notre Dame with the most experienced offensive line in the nation this season with 100 starts (tying them with Virginia Tech) followed by Texas, Florida State and Michigan. Near the bottom is Oklahoma which wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who watched the Sooners line struggle with penalties and protection issues in their opener against BYU.

While Notre Dame’s 35-0 win against Nevada didn’t turn many heads, they should get credit for shutting out a good offense whose schemes are similar to Michigan’s. The Irish defense will try to confuse Wolverine freshman quarterback Tate Forcier, who threw three touchdown passes in their 31-7 win over Western Michigan. Conversely, Wolverine defenders will have their hands full with Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen who completed 15 of 18 passes for 315 yards and four touchdowns. If you add in his Hawaii Bowl performance, Clausen is a blistering 37 for 43 with seven touchdowns and 716 yards in his last two games.

This will be one of a very few early season games where the Valero Alamo Bowl has a rooting interest for both teams. For this game, it’ll be good for the Fighting Irish to be on a roll when they come to San Antonio on October 31 (click here–Lower Level tickets still available!), but with our Big Ten partnership you want to see a traditional power like Michigan rebound from their 3-9 campaign and go bowling again.

I favor quarterback experience in both of the featured games. Unfortunately, none of the four quarterbacks were even alive when I was in high school so I’ll just deduce I’m old rather than make any predictions. My true hope is that Notre Dame at Michigan and USC at Ohio State are as compelling of match-ups as billed so I won’t have a reason to leave my couch all day Saturday.